Kaufmann Desert House

Description:

Gate of front facade, looking into courtyard; wood ceiling of the overhang, walkway below, and stairs up to second level; One of the last domestic projects conducted by Neutra, designed for the same family (Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr., a Pittsburgh department store tycoon) who commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater in Pennsylvania. The five-bedroom, five-bathroom vacation house, was designed to emphasize connection to the desert landscape while offering shelter from harsh climatic conditions. Large sliding glass walls open the living spaces and master bedroom to adjacent patios. When Kaufmann died in 1955, the house was vacant for a number of years, then underwent some remodeling. In 1991 new owners sought to restore the home to its original design. Neutra died in 1970 and the original plans were not available, so the couple brought in Los Angeles architects Leo Marmol and Ron Radziner to restore the design. They consulted archives at UCLA and Columbia and the 1947 photographs by Julius Shulman, which had made the house famous. Source: Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (accessed 7/18/2014)